Adding them is easy: just grab the necessary code from the channel’s homepage, Reddit, or an aggregator site, navigate to your Roku online portal, and click Add Channel. It will become available on your device within 24 hours, and often a lot sooner.

It’s important to realize that these channels are maintained by hobbyists and enthusiasts – and, as such, they are liable to be buggy or stop functioning altogether. Nonetheless, they are a fantastic way of expanding the content available to you and helping you cut the cord in order to save money.

2. Secret Menus

The secret menus are probably the biggest “secret” on this entire list.

They are primarily used for accessing the system’s root settings and altering them to your liking. For example, you can force an update of your device’s software, cycle through the various channel stores, optimize your Wi-Fi settings, or enable the developer mode.

Interestingly, they also allow you to side-load one channel (yes, you can only have one installed at a time). This is great if a mainstream channel, such as Netflix, isn’t available in your region.

Here is a list of currently-working secret menus, though new ones are discovered often:

Warning One: Messing with these settings could have adverse effects on your device – proceed with caution.

Warning Two: These could stop working with future software updates.

3. Use Your Phone as a Keyboard

The Roku remote is perfect for navigating between channels and playing/pausing videos – but it’s really annoying to use when you need to type anything.

That’s a problem when you need to add login details for Netflix or Spotify, enter your Wi-Fi password, or otherwise engage with your device. Thankfully, Roku makes a great smartphone app for Android and iOS, as well as an app for Windows.

These apps let you use your phone as a keyboard, use Roku Search to find content, and control video playback.

To use it, you’ll need to install the Roku Media Player channel from the Channel Store. Once that’s done, plug in your USB stick, fire up the channel, and use the remote to navigate to the content you want.

Login to your portal and click on Choose Your PIN Preferences at the top of the screen. You can choose to be presented with a PIN request either when you make purchases or any time a new channel is added (even free ones).

Unfortunately, it does not work when adding content directly from the Web portal, though as long as you have a strong password, that scenario is easy to defend against.

6. Rename Your Roku

Once you have a Roku in your home, it’s tempting to add another. And another. And another. This is especially true if you own several TVs and want the device’s functionality on all of them.

There are hundreds to choose from; most are free, but some cost anything up to $2 apiece. You’ll definitely be able to find something to suit your tastes – whether you want to watch fish swimming around an aquarium, recreate the illusion of a roaring fireplace, or get live news updates from your favorite sites.

What Roku Tips Can You Share?

This article has hopefully given you some insight into the power of your Roku. It’s so much more than Netflix and YouTube, it really can become the hub of your home entertainment.

Of course, we’ve only listed 10 tips. Seasoned Roku users will undoubtedly have lots more tips and suggestions up their sleeves.

If you’ve got some tricks that we haven’t covered, we’d love to hear about them. You’ll be helping out both ourselves and your fellow readers. As always, you can leave your ideas, suggestions, and thoughts in the comments below.

My Roku used to stay on the same screen when it went to sleep. Then when I turned the tv back on it was all ready for me to continue my binge watching by just pressing enter. Now it returns to the top level screen with all the channels on it and I have to navigate back to where I left off. How do I make it go back to the way it used to be.

This has happened to my Roku 2 also. I've always just left it on whatever channel I had been watching. Now, when I come back later it's always back on the home screen. It must have been part of the last upgrade. I don't know if there is any way to change it or not, but it is kind of annoying.

Dan is a British expat living in Mexico. He is currently the Social Editor for MakeUseOf. He was formerly the Creative Editor and Finance Editor. Prior to his writing career, he was a Financial Consultant. He holds various certifications from the University of Leeds, the University of Cambridge, and the…